National Party finance spokeswoman Nicola Willis said the revelation Labour considered wealth and capital gains taxes ahead of the Budget shows "Labour loves tax like a shark loves blood".
This morning, Treasury's Budget 2023 tax initiatives proactive information release showed the Government pursued work on a potential wealth tax and capital gains tax as part of a tax switch in Budget 2023.
Shortly after, in a statement ruling out the taxes under his leadership, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins also acknowledged work on them had been underway ahead of this year's Budget, but he had personally decided against it.
His announcement followed the release of a Talbot Mills poll which gave Labour its lowest result since 2019, on 31% for the party vote - five points below the National Party on 36%.
This afternoon on her Instagram story, Willis said Labour had been "busy designing a new capital gains tax, a wealth tax and windfall taxes".
"Labour loves tax like a shark loves blood.
"Hipkins wants you to believe that if elected the coalition of chaos won't introduce them. Pull the other one."
In response this afternoon, Finance Minister Grant Robertson said what he "loved" was "social justice and fairness" and "working our way to a point where all New Zealanders have opportunity".
"What I love is building more state houses, not selling them. What I love is seeing more people in apprenticeships not people struggling to get the skills they need to find jobs. There are a lot of things that the Labour Party stands for. One of them is fairness, we've made some tax changes in that direction, we considered others and decided not to go ahead with them."
In a statement, National leader Christopher Luxon accused the Labour Party of cynicism after Hipkins ruled out a capital gains or wealth tax today.
He said it showed Labour had been "cooking up both a wealth tax and a capital gains tax" and now had "cynically tried to rule them out to protect their position in the polls".
“The coalition of chaos is plainly divided on tax, with the Greens hugely in favour of wealth taxes and Labour fighting internally over them. The chaos has come before the coalition. There is division within the parties on the left, and between them on this core aspect of economic policy."
He said people should "expect" the taxes to be "back on the table" if the "coalition of chaos" - Labour with the Green Party and Te Pāti Māori - came to be.
“For six years, Labour has mismanaged the economy and relied on extra taxation and borrowing to pay for its wasteful spending – which is now $1 billion a week higher than when National was in government. The result is a recession and a cost of living crisis that all Kiwis are paying for.
“National will cut wasteful spending and get the books back in order – delivering tax reductions so the average income earner can keep almost an extra $1000 a year of their own money."
He said a National government would "manage a strong and growing economy" that ended the cost of living crises, lifted wages, provided tax cuts and could afford better health and education services.
Green Party co-leader James Shaw said political leaders didn't get to decide what would and wouldn't happen after the election.
The Green Party has campaigned repeatedly on the introduction of wealth and capital gains taxes.
"Nothing Labour says now will stop the Green Party from fighting for a fairer tax system," Shaw said.
“For too long, governments have been tinkering at the edges - constrained by self-imposed refusal to tax the wealthy - instead of taking the bold decisions people need right now. If political leaders are not willing to take those decisions on behalf of the people of the country you purport to lead, then why be in politics at all?
"Any party that stops short of promising to change the tax system so we can lift every family out of poverty, is actively choosing to make life harder for thousands of people."
ACT leader David Seymour said in a Labour-Green-Te Pāti Māori government, the Greens and Māori Party would team up with Labour’s "capital gains caucus" to "force Hipkins to introduce a capital gains tax".
He said under ACT’s two-tier tax structure, a carbon tax refund and lower income offset, everyone would be better off.
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